Narrative Perspectives on Migrant Agency and Kinship: An Introduction

The edited volume Mobility, Agency, Kinship: Representations of Migration Beyond Victimhood sets out to investigate narrative representations of the nexus between migration, agency, and kinship in literature, media, and the arts. Starting from the observation that previous research on migration and kinship has largely neglected to examine how practices of kinship formation can facilitate migrant agency, this introduction conceptualizes kinship as a transformative social and cultural practice that is inscribed in narrative patterns and structures informing the ways in which migration is perceived and responded to in different cultures and societies. The chapter develops its argument in two steps: It first offers an overview of recent research in the fields of migration studies, kinship studies, and interdisciplinary narrative research that provides the conceptual and theoretical frameworks underlying the contributions to the volume before it proceeds to outline the tripartite structure of the volume and the argument of its individual chapters.